0:13Skip to 0 minutes and 13 secondsGreat, so I think there's a question in the front row. Whenever you talk about globalization, we generally talk about big brands coming to small countries, like developing countries, but do you think big countries like US or UK, are they ready to accept brands from some smaller countries, developing countries, like India? Great. OK. So are we ready for brands from India and China and Vietnam and Indonesia and wherever? James, do you want to-- Yes, I think maybe branding in India, China, Pakistan, and so on isn't as developed as it is in the West, but the catch up can be very, very quick. I think in some ways there are some real advantages.

0:50Skip to 0 minutes and 50 secondsThey have a very, very big home market, and I think that enables scale to be reached very, very quickly. There's been some very interesting phenomena that some people call frugal innovation, which is about developing products that are designed to appeal to a very wide market. And while those products they may be dismissed, perhaps, by branding experts in the West, actually that's often the way in which new companies come to be established. So we think about classic brands from Japan now, which we think of elite and luxury brands, but they weren't elite, luxury brands 40 or 50 years ago. They had that quality. They were the cheap and cheerful products, but they have now become leading global brands.

1:35Skip to 1 minute and 35 secondsAnd I think you can see that developing with a number of Indian and Chinese brands, in particular. So, Peter, will it be cheap and cheerful or do you think the range could be broader than that. Well, I think, obviously, cheap and cheerful appeals to many people, and I think some of the developing economies they have the advantage of, as James said, scale, and sometimes inherent costs, which are much lower. But, actually, I think that there's an opportunity for niche brands in other areas too. We come from a very culturally diverse world. We're also quite curious as human beings, and we like to try new things. We look for stories to tie the brand to some particular profile, some particular value.

2:18Skip to 2 minutes and 18 secondsAnd I think provided a brand can do that, I don't think there's any limits at all. Right. OK, Peter. What do you think Alfonso? Now that the brands, not because the developing countries are producing more branding, it's because they've got advantages-- economic, as Peter and James have said about economies of scale, and massively produced, and cheap labor force. Also, they are growing little by little. This is a process that will take some time-- one or two or three decades-- in starting, creating innovation.

2:47Skip to 2 minutes and 47 secondsAnd these brands in the beginning they are competing with probably lower costs and massive scale of production, but later the perception is that they will start competing with the sense of knowledge that they have acquired through two or three or four or five decades before. Little by little, those companies will be getting into the developed world picture in a very different way, in terms of knowledge-based companies. Right, OK.

Brands from the east

In this ‘question time’ film, students on the brand leadership masters course at UEA ask questions to a panel of academic experts: Dr Alfonso Avila-Merino, James Cornford and Peter Schmidt-Hansen. In this film, the experts explore a growing new phenomenon: the arrival of global brands from the east and south. Do you think these brands will emulate western ones, or be completely different?